tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/doomsday-preppers-13556/articlesDoomsday Preppers – The Conversation2023-02-08T06:05:57Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1989492023-02-08T06:05:57Z2023-02-08T06:05:57ZThe Last of Us: why we should all think like preppers – and how to do it<p>The acclaimed post-apocalyptic TV series <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/jan/16/the-last-of-us-review-one-of-the-finest-tv-shows-you-will-see-this-year">The Last of Us</a>, based on a hugely popular video game, featured a character – Bill – who has managed to live through the nightmare because he has prepared for such an eventuality – he is what he calls a “survivalist”. </p>
<p>“Prepping” – as it is widely known – is a way of anticipating and adapting to impending <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7151311/">conditions of calamity</a> by preparing homes, rooms and bunkers to survive in. </p>
<p>COVID-19, the limits on certain foodstuffs caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the cost of living crisis have pushed “preppers” from the fringes <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/uk-prepper-movement-growing-with-more-people-hoarding-supplies-at-home-in-case-current-crises-escalate-12770339">towards the mainstream</a>. </p>
<p>Despite attempts by preppers to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/petersuciu/2020/03/23/preppers-are-sharing-tips-on-surviving-covid-19-via-social-media/?sh=341d638814cf">push back on stereotypes</a>, prepping does still come with associations of doomsday and apocalyptic thinking. <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1002/per.2216?journalCode=erpa">Research</a> also suggests that preppers tend to be conspiratorial, often displaying traits such as low agreeableness, paranoia, and cynicism. </p>
<p>Yet many of us became partial “preppers” during the recent pandemic. We stocked up on loo rolls and rationed products, buying as many items with long shelf lives as we were allowed to by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/sep/25/tesco-sales-covid-rationing-toilet-roll-flour">local supermarkets</a>. Survival and a degree of panic were certainly driving our actions, and at times irrationally so. </p>
<h2>Prep the right way</h2>
<p>Nevertheless, if done in the right way, prepping – thinking ahead and being proactive – is the opposite of panic buying. Instead, it means stocking up on key essentials over a long period of time, so that in the future there is no need to panic buy. </p>
<p>When demand for products surges, it leads to shortages which can cause what is known as a “<a href="https://qz.com/emails/quartz-obsession/2064752/the-bullwhip-effect">bullwhip effect</a>”. This is the phenomenon where increased demand by consumers creates unsustainable and exaggerated demand across the entire supply chain. This can lead to product shortages but also higher levels of waste due to unnecessary stock production. Stocking up on key items early can help prevent this. </p>
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<img alt="Woman reaching for tin in supermarket" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508354/original/file-20230206-17-2fbepe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508354/original/file-20230206-17-2fbepe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508354/original/file-20230206-17-2fbepe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508354/original/file-20230206-17-2fbepe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508354/original/file-20230206-17-2fbepe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508354/original/file-20230206-17-2fbepe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508354/original/file-20230206-17-2fbepe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Stock up on essentials slowly over time.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/shopping-consumerism-people-concept-woman-taking-1747031606">Ground Picture/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>And preparing for emergencies has always been both the logical and sensible thing to do. A “<a href="https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/home-products/a33605583/bug-out-bag-list/">bug-out bag</a>” or “go bag” – a bag packed with survival supplies such as food, water, medications, radios and flashlights – is <a href="https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/checklist-earthquake-go-bag/2918161/">considered essential</a> in regions prone to natural disasters when rapid evacuation may be necessary. </p>
<p>Pre-pandemic preppers tend to be associated with an irrational fear of “doomsday”, while those who stocked up on vital goods during the pandemic have been (often unfairly) portrayed as hoarders. We propose a new kind of prepping, without the anticipation of doomsday and the stigma of hoarding. Here are four ways to become a responsible prepper. </p>
<h2>1. Take a drip-fed approach</h2>
<p>Being conscientious in your purchasing habits will allow you to responsibly “prep” while smoothing out the demand in the supply chain, leading to less shortages. Buying the odd extra packet of something or pack of loo roll to add to your usual cupboard stores over time can become your normal buying pattern, as opposed to emergency bulk-buying at once.</p>
<h2>2. Create a personalised ‘bug-out bag’</h2>
<p>Fill it with items essential to you and your family, such as cooking utensils, toiletries, solar-powered batteries, reserves of candles and food and medicines with a long shelf life. In the event of natural disasters such as snowstorms and floods or events such as power cuts, having your bug-out bag will help you feel more prepared to weather the storm. </p>
<h2>3. Go back to basics</h2>
<p>Build the capacity to make your own basic food products such as bread and pasta and invest in the equipment and ingredients to do this. Pasta was a staple in <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/5456bc24-6dd4-11ea-9bca-bf503995cd6f">pandemic pantries</a>, leading to widespread stock shortages. A responsible prepper would learn to make their own – and feed their neighbours at the same time. The same goes for bread.</p>
<h2>4. Consider using more tinned foods</h2>
<p>Prepping may be an interim solution to navigate through the current cost of living crisis. Introducing cheaper tinned foods or other long-life products into your shopping basket may help ease <a href="https://ahdb.org.uk/news/consumer-insight-canned-meat-and-uht-milk-set-for-cost-of-living-renaissance">financial pressures</a>. Tinned goods have a longer shelf life so are less likely to spoil before you use them in times of need. </p>
<p>Should another event happen that prompts panic buying, responsible preppers can also help limit supply chain disruptions. They will already have the items they need, and won’t contribute to the emptying of supermarket shelves. Maybe it’s time we all found our inner prepper.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198949/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Stocking up responsibly could mean you are prepared for emergencies, save money – and help keep supply chains running.Kamran Mahroof, Associate Professor, Supply Chain Analytics, University of BradfordLiz Breen, Director of the Digital Health Enterprise Zone (DHEZ), University of Bradford, Professor in Health Service Operations, University of BradfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1522512020-12-29T09:32:10Z2020-12-29T09:32:10ZFrom Charles Dickens to woolly mammoths: great long reads of 2020<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375924/original/file-20201218-15-1da9vwo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C23%2C1162%2C761&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> </figcaption></figure><p>It’s been an interesting year on The Conversation <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=Insightsrectangle1homepage">Insights</a> desk. We’ve produced a raft of compelling stories from academics carrying out research all over the world in an attempt to answer some of life’s most important questions.</p>
<p>Whether it’s a millionaire bunker builder living in a revamped intercontinental ballistic missile silo in Texas or a doctor on the frontline of the coronavirus pandemic in Liverpool, our long reads have featured fascinating people with amazing tales to tell.</p>
<p>There have been stories of <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-stopped-us-doing-life-changing-surgery-so-we-invented-a-new-form-of-ppe-144752">innovation and pure joy</a>, intensely <a href="https://theconversation.com/thousands-of-unidentified-zimbabweans-lie-in-secret-mass-graves-and-i-want-to-find-them-122586">personal journeys</a> as well as in-depth, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-model-a-pandemic-134187">data driven analysis</a>.</p>
<p>This being 2020, there have also been stories tinged with sadness. But what all our stories have in common is a sense of hope. Here are some of our personal highlights.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong><em>This article is part of Conversation Insights</em></strong>
<br><em>The Insights team generates <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218">long-form journalism</a> derived from interdisciplinary research. The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.</em></p>
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<p><strong>Paul Keaveny, Commissioning Editor, Insights</strong></p>
<p>Dickensian sleuth Leon Litvack brought us a <a href="https://theconversation.com/charles-dickens-newly-discovered-documents-reveal-truth-about-his-death-and-burial-130079">world exclusive</a> after delving into archives and cathedral vaults to find letters and documents that revealed how Charles Dickens’s biographer and friend John Forster conspired with the dean of Westminster Abbey to clinch the author a “fitting” celebrity funeral – against the writer’s will and his family’s wishes.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/charles-dickens-newly-discovered-documents-reveal-truth-about-his-death-and-burial-130079">Charles Dickens: newly discovered documents reveal truth about his death and burial</a>
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<p>Bradley Garrett took us through the three years he spent with some of the world’s most committed <a href="https://theconversation.com/living-with-bunker-builders-doomsday-prepping-in-the-age-of-coronavirus-136635">doomsday preppers</a> and bunker builders who took quarantine and self-isolation to the next level. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/living-with-bunker-builders-doomsday-prepping-in-the-age-of-coronavirus-136635">Living with bunker builders: doomsday prepping in the age of coronavirus</a>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/376127/original/file-20201221-57963-1hy1azr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/376127/original/file-20201221-57963-1hy1azr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=884&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376127/original/file-20201221-57963-1hy1azr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=884&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376127/original/file-20201221-57963-1hy1azr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=884&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376127/original/file-20201221-57963-1hy1azr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1111&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376127/original/file-20201221-57963-1hy1azr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1111&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376127/original/file-20201221-57963-1hy1azr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1111&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Great Bible.</span>
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<p>When historian Eyal Poleg and scientist Paola Ricciardi uncovered a hitherto unknown plot by Thomas Cromwell to “cut and paste” his image next to the King on Henry’s Great Bible, they were blown away. So were we, and so was Wolf Hall writer, Hilary Mantel. After she read <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-thomas-cromwell-used-cut-and-paste-to-insert-himself-into-henry-viiis-great-bible-143765">our piece</a>, she told us: “It raises fascinating questions about the relationship between Henry’s leading ministers, and suggests that the politicians of the 16th century were as capable of manipulation of images as those of the present day.”</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-thomas-cromwell-used-cut-and-paste-to-insert-himself-into-henry-viiis-great-bible-143765">How Thomas Cromwell used cut and paste to insert himself into Henry VIII's Great Bible</a>
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<p><strong>Josephine Lethbridge, Interdisciplinary Editor</strong></p>
<p>Back in March, as much of the world faced lockdown for the first time, economist Simon Mair pondered over what a post-coronavirus future might hold. How bad will this crisis turn out to be? What problems has it brought to light? Might it be used as a chance to rebuild better? March now seems like a very long time ago, but his projections of <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-will-the-world-be-like-after-coronavirus-four-possible-futures-134085">four possible futures</a> remain relevant – and somewhat hopeful.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-will-the-world-be-like-after-coronavirus-four-possible-futures-134085">What will the world be like after coronavirus? Four possible futures</a>
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<p>Charlotte Wrigley asked us to imagine a very different future, one where <a href="https://theconversation.com/mammoth-task-the-russian-family-on-a-resurrection-quest-to-tackle-the-climate-crisis-138142">resurrected mammoths might trample down the permafrost</a> in Siberia’s tundra, thereby counteracting the terrible effects of climate change. She spent a few months with Sergey and Nikita Zimov, the father and son spearheading this madcap plan, while researching the effects of thawing permafrost. This took her to mammoth museums, cryobanks and a winter on the ice along the way.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mammoth-task-the-russian-family-on-a-resurrection-quest-to-tackle-the-climate-crisis-138142">Mammoth task: the Russian family on a resurrection quest to tackle the climate crisis</a>
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<p>This year was, after all, supposed to be a year that focused on the climate crisis. But of course, the 2020 United Nations Climate Change Conference was postponed until 2021. Attendees next November will find another futuristic vision we’ve covered there – an exhibit of some <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-crisis-how-museums-could-inspire-radical-action-142531">speculative “museums of the future”</a> that might encourage visitors to reflect on humanity’s damaging relationship with nature – and, hopefully, do something about it.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-crisis-how-museums-could-inspire-radical-action-142531">Climate crisis: how museums could inspire radical action</a>
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<img alt="An iceberg exhibit in an empty gallery." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/376220/original/file-20201221-23-1dlp7qi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/376220/original/file-20201221-23-1dlp7qi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376220/original/file-20201221-23-1dlp7qi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376220/original/file-20201221-23-1dlp7qi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376220/original/file-20201221-23-1dlp7qi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376220/original/file-20201221-23-1dlp7qi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376220/original/file-20201221-23-1dlp7qi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Gallery of Ecological Art (formerly China gallery) at the British Museum of Decolonised Nature.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy John Zhang and Studio JZ</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p><strong>Megan Clement, Commissioning Editor, COVID-19</strong></p>
<p>After months of covering the horror of the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, we were desperate for a glimpse of hope. In autumn, that came in the form of an ear, nose and throat surgeon in Nottingham, who wrote to The Conversation to tell us that he and his colleagues had invented <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-stopped-us-doing-life-changing-surgery-so-we-invented-a-new-form-of-ppe-144752">a new form of PPE</a>.</p>
<p>Why? So they could continue carrying out life-changing surgery on deaf children. His story, along with the delightful pictures of trying to mimic surgery while wearing a scuba mask, lifted the spirits of our editors and readers alike. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-stopped-us-doing-life-changing-surgery-so-we-invented-a-new-form-of-ppe-144752">Coronavirus stopped us doing life-changing surgery, so we invented a new form of PPE</a>
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<p>As the year drew to a close, we heard from another set of healthcare workers who wanted to share their stories. Two infectious disease doctors, Tom Wingfield and Miriam Taegtmeyer, wrote about the challenges and successes of caring for COVID patients in the hospitals of Liverpool during the second wave of coronavirus. <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-will-not-forget-our-colleagues-who-have-died-two-doctors-on-the-frontline-of-the-second-wave-148152">Their moving testimony</a>, including tributes to lost colleagues and recovered patients, will stay with me throughout the winter. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-will-not-forget-our-colleagues-who-have-died-two-doctors-on-the-frontline-of-the-second-wave-148152">'We will not forget our colleagues who have died': two doctors on the frontline of the second wave</a>
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<p><strong>Rob Reddick, Commissioning Editor, COVID-19</strong></p>
<p>The decision to prioritise vaccinating care home residents in the UK shows that the risk of COVID-19 in care settings is finally being taken seriously. But the high vulnerability of people in care seemed to come as a surprise in the first wave. It shouldn’t have. </p>
<p>As Chris Wilson’s archival research showed, a Victorian cholera epidemic provided <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-eerily-similar-pandemic-we-could-have-learned-from-but-didnt-138072">a chilling preview</a> of what happens when there are inadequate precautions to stop a disease getting into an institution of care. Hopefully this example, and those of 2020, will ensure that sufficient protections are always in place in the future.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-eerily-similar-pandemic-we-could-have-learned-from-but-didnt-138072">The eerily similar pandemic we could have learned from but didn’t</a>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>For you: more from our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Insights series</a>:</em> </p>
<ul>
<li><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/searching-for-misha-the-life-and-tragedies-of-the-worlds-most-famous-polar-bear-137344?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Searching for Misha: the life and tragedies of the world’s most famous polar bear</a></em> </li>
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Insights editors choose their top reads of the year.Megan Clement, Commissioning Editor, COVID-19, The ConversationJosephine Lethbridge, Investigations EditorPaul Keaveny, Investigations Editor, Insights, The ConversationRob Reddick, Commissioning Editor, COVID-19Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1366352020-05-14T07:00:08Z2020-05-14T07:00:08ZLiving with bunker builders: doomsday prepping in the age of coronavirus<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335086/original/file-20200514-77247-cvshqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2628%2C283%2C4848%2C4724&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Going underground: heading into an Atlas Shelter in Dallas, Texas.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bradley Garrett</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nestled among Kansas cornfields in a landscape devoid of any noticeable natural topography, a verdant mound can be seen from a dirt road. Surrounded by a military-grade chain fence and in the shadow of a large wind turbine, a security guard in camouflage paces the fence line with an assault rifle. If you look closely, you might notice what looks like a concrete pill box perched on the top of the small hill, flanked by cameras. What lies underneath is a bunker that is unassuming, unassailable and – to many – unbelievable.</p>
<p>To the outsider it looks a bit like a secret government installation – and indeed at one time it was. But this is not a bunker built to hide citizens or to protect the politicians who ordered its construction. It is an <a href="http://www.atlasmissilesilo.com/atlas_f.htm">Atlas F missile silo</a>, built by the US in the early 1960s at a cost of about US$15 million. It was one of 72 blast “hardened” silo structures built to protect nuclear-tipped Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles with an ordnance 100 times more powerful than the bomb <a href="https://time.com/4954082/hydrogen-bomb-atomic-bomb/">dropped on Nagasaki</a>. Although it was out of sight and out of mind to the average US citizen, it played a crucial role in a geopolitical agenda of extinction-level significance during the Cold War.</p>
<p>However, that was then. The bunker is now no longer owned by the government, <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/308/308185/bunker/9780241336014.html">but by Larry Hall</a>, a former government contractor, property developer and self-confessed doomsday “prepper” who purchased it in 2008. Preppers are the people who anticipate and attempt to adapt for what they see as probable or inevitable and impending conditions of calamity (ranging from low-level crises to extinction-level events). <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13669877.2018.1466825?src=recsys&journalCode=rjrr20">According to Michael Mills</a>, a criminologist at the University of Kent, preppers build for situations where “food and basic utilities may be unavailable, government assistance may be non-existent and survivors may have to individually sustain their own survival”.</p>
<p>Since purchasing the silo over a decade ago, Hall has transformed this subterranean megastructure into a 15-story inverted tower block – a “geoscraper” – now dubbed <a href="https://survivalcondo.com/">Survival Condo</a>. It is designed for a community of up to 75 people to weather a maximum of five years inside a sealed, self-sufficient luxury habitat. When the event passes, residents expect to be able emerge into the post-apocalyptic world (PAW, in prepper parlance) to rebuild society afresh. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong><em>This article is part of Conversation Insights</em></strong>
<br><em>The Insights team generates <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218">long-form journalism</a> derived from interdisciplinary research. The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.</em> </p>
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<p>I spent three years conducting <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016718520300804">ethnographic research</a> with nearly 100 preppers from six countries, including Australia, the UK, Germany, Thailand, Korea and the US. I’ve hung out in bunker complexes on the Great Plains, with groups growing food in secret forests, with people building heavily armored vehicles, and with religious communities that have collected supplies that they’re ready to hand over to strangers in need. According to these preppers, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is merely a “mid-level” event – a warm up for what is to come. They anticipated and prepared for a disaster just like this one, and – unlike most of us – say they weren’t caught by surprise. </p>
<p>Most preppers are not in fact preparing for doomsday – they’re everyday people who anticipate and try to adapt for many conditions of calamity; conditions which they believe inevitable and have been exponentially escalated through human hubris and excessive reliance on technology and global trade networks. While the disasters they anticipate might – at the more extreme end of the spectrum – include major “resets” like an all-out nuclear war or a massive electromagnetic pulse from the sun that would <a href="https://theprepared.com/emergencies/guides/emp/">fry our fragile electronics</a>, most preppers stockpile for low to mid-level crises like the one the world is experiencing now. </p>
<p>Indeed, a new banner on <a href="https://survivalcondo.com/">Survival Condo’s website</a> boasts that the silo’s nuclear, biological and chemical air filters can “screen out” the COVID-19 virus. While most of us wouldn’t build against crisis to this degree, or even get the opportunity to, there are still some lessons I discovered that society can learn from preppers and the way they look at the world.</p>
<h2>A brief history of survivalism</h2>
<p>Prior to prepping there was survivalism, a Cold War-era practice focused on practical approaches to potential cultural and environmental disasters. One of the primary concerns of survivalists was the possibility of nuclear war. This was a threat which they felt was brought about by scientists, elites and politicians willing to sacrifice citizens in the name of geopolitics. Many survivalists, as a result, were distrustful of heavy-handed government and globalisation – they often dodged taxes and the law while relying heavily on the perceived autonomy <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/D/bo3637295.html">enshrined by the US constitution.</a></p>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Saxon">Kurt Saxon</a>, the man who coined the term survivalism, advocated for armed revolution and wrote primers on how to create improvised weapons and munitions. Some survivalists, following his lead, became radicalised as they worked to cultivate self-sufficiency by breaking away from government oversight. Both <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1321244.stm">Timothy McVeigh</a>, the Oklahoma City Bomber, and David Koresh, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/waco-the-siege-25-years-on-94324">Waco Branch Davidian leader</a>, were deeply invested in the practice. </p>
<p>In the 1980s and 1990s, the US government persecuted and prosecuted many survivalists in an effort to stamp out the movement, which by that time included <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Apocalypse-Oklahoma-Waco-Ridge-Revenged/dp/1555533000">up to 3 million Americans</a>. Some of the names involved, such and Randy Weaver (at Ruby Ridge) Bo Gritz (the inspiration for Rambo), and William Stanton (of the Montana Freemen) became household names. Their suppression gave rise to wider frustrations and further anti-government sentiment. <a href="https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/">Determining that people were becoming “paranoid”, the government then ratcheted up surveillance</a>, which just led to more militancy. </p>
<p>Most preppers today, in contrast, take a distinctly defensive stance in an effort to distance themselves from the politics of early survivalists, focusing more on practicalities than partisan ideological debates. Yet media-driven perceptions often <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/tv/doomsday-preppers/">paint crude portraits of them</a>. Walking through the multi-million dollar Survival Condo, built with full planning permission from the State of Kansas, it is obvious that a lot has changed in a few short decades.</p>
<h2>Survival Condo</h2>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/331436/original/file-20200429-51480-14aynlx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/331436/original/file-20200429-51480-14aynlx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=638&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331436/original/file-20200429-51480-14aynlx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=638&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331436/original/file-20200429-51480-14aynlx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=638&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331436/original/file-20200429-51480-14aynlx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=802&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331436/original/file-20200429-51480-14aynlx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=802&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331436/original/file-20200429-51480-14aynlx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=802&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A cross section of Survival Condo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://survivalcondo.com/">Image courtesy of Survival Condo</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>When Hall took me on a tour of the condo in 2018, he explained that “the whole idea was that we could build a green doomsday structure that someone can use as a second home that also happens to be a nuclear hardened bunker”. Hall called it a safe, self-contained, and sustainable “experiment in architecture” – the subterranean equivalent of the University of Arizona’s <a href="https://biosphere2.org/">Biosphere 2</a> project. </p>
<p>Biosphere 2, also known as the “Greenhouse Ark”, was one of the most ambitious projects in communal isolation ever orchestrated. The three-acre complex had seven “biomes” under glass. In 1991, a crew of four men and four women locked themselves into see if they could survive in a closed system for two years. It concluded with “infighting among the scientists, malnutrition, and other social and environmental pitfalls”, <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mbjz43/setting-the-record-straight-about-the-biosphere-2">according to one of the original crew members</a>. Hall, however, remained convinced he could improve on the model:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This is a completely closed system. People try to build systems like this on their farms and they get infiltrated by bugs…rain, and wind damage. We’ve removed all those factors.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Hall said that his bunker was good practise for closed systems, such as space travel. Bunkers like Survival Condo, found as far afield as <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/we-should-all-be-preppers/611074/">remote villages in Thailand</a>, are distinctly private endeavours that seek to use renewable technologies to decrease dependence on state infrastructure. Survival Condo is also part of a growing desire to “prep” in the most sustainable way possible without necessarily forgoing the comforts of late capitalism. This is a worldview steeped in dread about the speculative unknown. </p>
<p>But it’s not cheap to buy your way out of the existential conundrum. A “<a href="https://survivalcondo.com/details/">penthouse</a>” in the condo would set you back US$4.5 million while a half-floor unit comes in at around US$1.5 million. Since “doomstead” mortgages are not yet a thing, only cash buyers need apply. Incredibly, not only has Hall sold every space in the first silo, he’s now building out a second one, 20 minutes away. This fact reflects an obvious, and growing, unease about the future. </p>
<p>At another location in South Dakota called the xPoint, which I have visited a number of times over the last few years, residents have stumped up US$25-$35,000 for empty concrete bunkers in the middle of the Great Plains. Originally built during world war one to store munitions, these 575 bunkers are now fast becoming the largest prepper community on Earth. </p>
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<p>Back in Kansas, I followed Hall through one of the 16,000lb blast doors that can be “locked down” at a moment’s notice. He waved me over to the nuclear, biological, and chemical air filtration unit for the condo and explained that they had three military-grade filters each providing 2,000-cubic feet per minute of filtration, that “were US$30,000 a pop”, says Hall. “I put US$20 million into this place and when you start buying military-grade equipment from the government you wouldn’t believe how quickly you get to that number,” he said.</p>
<p>Hall’s team had drilled 45, 300-ft deep subterranean geothermal wells and built in a water filtration system that used UV sterilisation and carbon paper filters. The system can filter 10,000 gallons of water a day into three electronically-monitored 25,000 gallon tanks. Power to the bunker is supplied by five different redundant systems – so, if one goes down, there are four backups. This is crucial, since as a life support system, losing power would kill everyone in the facility. Hall said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We’ve got a bank of 386 submarine batteries with a life of 15 or 16 years. We’re currently running at 50–60kW, 16–18 of which are coming from the wind turbine … However, we can’t do solar here … because the panels are fragile, and this is, after all, tornado alley. At some point we know that wind turbine is going to go too. I mean it won’t make it through five years of ice storms and hail, so we’ve also got two 100kW diesel generators, each of which could run the facility for 2.5 years.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Survival Condo has both private and communal areas, as you might find in any high-rise development. But in this tower block, during full lockdown mode there can be no external support. It must function as a closed system, where people are kept both healthy and busy until they are able to emerge. </p>
<p>Experiments in enclosed life-support systems conducted by the <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781315719825/chapters/10.4324/9781315719825-7">military (for submarines) and scientists (for spacecraft)</a> have often neglected to consider social systems after lockdown. Hall says he recognises that sustainability is not simply about technical functionality. On my tour he opened another door to a 50,000 gallon indoor swimming pool verged by a rock waterfall, lounge chairs and a picnic table. It was much like a scene from a holiday resort – but without the sun.</p>
<p>At the theatre and lounge level, we sat in leather recliners and watched a 4k screening of the Bond movie, Skyfall. The cinema was connected to the bar, which was intended to act as “neutral ground” for future residents. They had a beer keg system and one of the residents had provided 2,600 bottles of wine from her restaurant to stock the wine rack. As he showed me this, Hall insisted that recreation, sharing and community was as important to the condo’s design and management as the technical systems.</p>
<p>Given the severe limitations of underground living, anything extraneous must be eliminated. The entire building must be thought of as a single unit, where the actions of each resident inevitably effects all other residents. This is what makes the bunker more like a submarine than a tower block. In the event of a major incident, the umbilical cord to the world on the other side of the blast doors would be snipped and the clock would start ticking to a resupply.</p>
<p>On the other hand, in an era of surveillance dominated by what some deem to be a concerted push by Silicon Valley elites to <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/too-smart">eviscerate all forms of privacy</a>, subterranea may be humanity’s last refuge <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Underland-Deep-Journey-Robert-Macfarlane/dp/0393242145">against total transparency</a> – at least for now. One prepper I interviewed suggested that the bunker he was building in eastern America was the best escape plan possible. He told me: “We can’t build a <a href="https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/technology/science/elon-ark-is-getting-ready-to-fly-eccentric-billionaire-races-ahead-with-his-mars-colony-dream/news-story/47e44d18f1c8ba3116b6dd218cdb4e63">celestial ark like Elon Musk</a>, we can’t leave the Earth, so we’re going to go into the earth. I’m building a spaceship in the Earth.”</p>
<h2>The consultant</h2>
<p>Inside the Survival Condo, Hall said, would also be a system of rotating jobs for the five years, both so that people would be occupied (“People on vacation constantly get destructive tendencies”) and so that they would individually learn the different critical operations in the bunker. This was a lesson learned from the University of Arizona’s <a href="https://dartmouthalumnimagazine.com/articles/biosphere-2-what-really-happened">Biosphere 2 project</a>. In fact, Hall hired a consultant who had worked on Biosphere 2 to assist in the planning of the Survival Condo who went over everything in meticulous detail. From the colours and textures on the walls to the LED lighting to help prevent depression. As Hall said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>People come in here and they want to know why people need all this “luxury” – the cinema, rock climbing wall, table tennis, video games, shooting range, sauna, library and everything … but what they don’t get is that this isn’t about luxury, this stuff is key to survival.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Hall believes that if these amenities are not built in, the brain keeps a subconscious score of “abnormal things” which is when depression or cabin fever creeps in. What he said next will no doubt have a strong resonance to all those in COVID-19 lockdown:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Whether you’re woodworking or just taking the dog for a walk, it’s crucial that people feel they are living a relatively normal life – even if the world is burning outside. People want good quality food and water, to feel safe and to feel they’re working together towards a common purpose. This thing’s got to function like a miniature cruise ship.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>During the early days of the Cold War, governments, military and universities conducted numerous experiments to see how long people could withstand being trapped underground together. In a 1959 government study in Pleasant Hill, California, 99 prisoners were confined in <a href="https://timeline.com/fallout-shelter-psychology-f04085f41654">underground lockdown for two weeks</a> (an experiment which would never receive ethics approval these days). When they emerged, “everyone was in good health and spirits”, according to a spokesperson for the group. It seemed people could adapt and make do – just so long as they knew the situation was temporary. It was like a period of submergence in a submarine: cramped and uncomfortable, but tolerable as long as a plan to surface was in place, a destination in time plotted. That was precisely the model Hall was operating on – though, rather than two weeks, Hall was planning for up to five years in lockdown.</p>
<h2>Both womb and tomb</h2>
<p>Over 60 metres below the surface of the Earth, we looked over racks filled with 25-year shelf-life food stored on the grocery store level – a convincing replica of a supermarket, complete with shopping baskets, an espresso machine behind the counter and a middle-class American aesthetic.</p>
<p>Hall said they needed low black ceilings, beige walls, a tile floor and nicely presented cases because if people were locked in this building and they had to come down here to rifle through cardboard boxes to get their food, they would soon get depressed.</p>
<p>It was also necessary to implement a rule that no one could take more than three days’ worth of groceries because shopping is “a social event”. Hall said that “since everything in here is already paid for, you need to encourage people to come down here to smell bread and make a coffee and to chat or barter supplies and services”.</p>
<p>We visited one of the completed 1,800-square-foot condos, which felt like a clean, predictable hotel room. I looked out of one of the windows and was shocked to see that it was night outside. I guessed we must have been underground for more than a few hours at this point.</p>
<p>I had completely forgotten we were underground. Hall picked up a remote control and flicked on a video feed being piped into the “window” – an LED screen – much like you might see in a futuristic film. Oak leaves suddenly shuddered in the foreground just in front of our cars, parked outside the blast door. In the distance, the camouflaged sentry posted at the chain link fence was standing in the same place as when we arrived.</p>
<p>“The screens can be loaded up with material or have a live feed piped in, but most people prefer to know what time of day it is than to see a beach in San Francisco or whatever,” Hall explained. “The thing the consultant drilled in again and again was that my job as the developer was to make this place is as normal as possible. All that security infrastructure, you want people to know how it works and how to fix it, but we don’t want to be reminded all the time that you are basically living in a spaceship or a submarine.”</p>
<h2>Emerging from the chrysalis</h2>
<p>But all this preparation is for life during lockdown. Is there any prepping going on for life after the blast doors re-open? One prepper named Auggie, who was building a large-scale bunker in Thailand, told me: “I imagine walking through the doors of the bunker when it’s finally finished and feeling the anxiety drop out of my body. I imagine spending time in there with my family, safe and secure, becoming my best version of myself.” Another in South Dakota, when questioned about what they might do in their bunker, said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Well, you could do anything, you could learn how to meditate, you could learn how to levitate, you could learn how to walk through walls. When you get rid of all the distractions and crap around us keeping us from doing these things, who knows what you can accomplish?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The bunker is imagined by some as a chrysalis for transformation into a “model self”, where preparations lead to a perfectly routine existence after which time a person can emerge as a <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/555192/thus-spoke-zarathustra-by-friedrich-nietzsche-translated-with-a-preface-by-walter-kaufmann/">superior version of themselves</a>. Many of us experienced this playing out during the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, which for some brought relief from unwanted travel obligations and for others provided a productive period of isolation and privacy. A utopia for some was a disaster for others, who were without the resources to hunker down and were left <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/04/30/unemployment-benefits-3-8-million-file-jobless-claims-amid-pandemic/3046759001/">jobless</a>, <a href="https://www.cpr.org/2020/04/29/is-this-what-dead-is-like-one-colorado-woman-recalls-her-ten-days-on-a-ventilator/">sick</a>, and <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/">dead</a>.</p>
<p>So in this sense, the rational, orderly, planned space of the bunker is the antithesis of what some see as the pointless acceleration and accumulation of modern life. These narratives contrast the media’s representation of prepping and bunker building as a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/mar/17/real-estate-for-the-apocalypse-my-journey-into-a-survival-bunker">gloomy, dystopian practice</a>. <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/308/308185/bunker/9780241336014.html">My research</a> found that prepping is ultimately hopeful, if a little selfish. Selfish because the preppers are looking out for themselves, given that they don’t trust the government to do so. However, as may of them have made clear to me during the current pandemic, the fact that they are self-sufficient has alleviated pressure on critical resources and health-care facilities, putting an altruistic spin on what looks to be a self-centered endeavour. Unlike survivalists, the goal of the prepper is not to exit society, but to help prop it up through personal preparedness. </p>
<p>One bunker builder in California explained to me that that “no one wants to go into the bunker as much as they want to come out of the bunker”. As such, the bunker is a form of transportation, but one that instead of transporting bodies and material through space, it transports them through time. </p>
<h2>Hope from dread</h2>
<p>To preppers, the bunker is both a controlled laboratory in which to build better selves, a place to reassert lost agency and a chrysalis from which to be reborn after a necessary “reset” of a messy, complicated and fragile world.</p>
<p>In the light of the COVID-19 pandemic it has become clear that the preppers are not social anomalies, but gatekeepers to understanding the contemporary human condition – just as survivalists of the past were a reflection of <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/our-authors/masco-joseph">Cold War anxieties</a>. Spaces like the Survival Condo seem improbable, if not impossible, but it’s the choice to build them that matters, because in action hope can spawn from dread. As Hall suggested at the end of our tour:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This was not a space of hope. The defensive capability of this structure only existed to the extent needed to protect a weapon, a missile – this bunker was a weapon system. So, we converted a weapon of mass destruction into the complete opposite.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But what the preppers are building is less important than our need to understand that prepping refracts underlying anxieties created by inequality, austerity, shrinking trust in government, despondency about globalisation and the speed of technological and social change. The COVID-19 pandemic is only likely to increase people’s dread – and therefore willingness – to normalise prepping practices. So it may well be that the future of humanity is not in the stars after all – but deep under the surface of the Earth. </p>
<p><em>Bradley Garrett’s new book <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/308/308185/bunker/9780241336014.html">Bunker: Building for the End Times</a>, will be published by Allen Lane in August.</em></p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>For you: more from our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Insights series</a>:</em></p>
<ul>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/lockdown-lessons-from-the-history-of-solitude-134611?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Lockdown lessons from the history of solitude</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/what-will-the-world-be-like-after-coronavirus-four-possible-futures-134085?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">What will the world be like after coronavirus? Four possible futures</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/the-end-of-the-world-a-history-of-how-a-silent-cosmos-led-humans-to-fear-the-worst-120193?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">The end of the world: a history of how a silent cosmos led humans to fear the worst</a></em></p></li>
</ul>
<p><em>To hear about new Insights articles, join the hundreds of thousands of people who value The Conversation’s evidence-based news. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/the-daily-newsletter-2?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK"><strong>Subscribe to our newsletter</strong></a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136635/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Research funding for this project was provided by a Sydney Fellowship from the University of Sydney in Australia.
</span></em></p>To ‘preppers’ getting ready for a global cataclysm, the COVID-19 pandemic is a mere ‘mid-level’ event.Bradley Garrett, Social and Cultural Geographer, University College DublinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1188672019-06-24T09:09:34Z2019-06-24T09:09:34ZWe spoke to survivalists prepping for disaster: here’s what we learned about the end of the world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280753/original/file-20190621-61767-19c6l8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/remains-destroyed-houses-sunset-apocalyptic-landscape-343138097?src=QM2UQruE-wE3KnHBQJ083w-1-98&studio=1">Nouskrabs/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>We are all fucked. A crude though oft-uttered sigh which tries to encapsulate an intense, but vague anxiety we experience on many fronts. What’s causing it? The possibility of climate-induced <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/05/20/climate-change-and-the-new-age-of-extinction">population extinction</a>, the development of so-called <a href="https://theconversation.com/super-intelligence-and-eternal-life-transhumanisms-faithful-follow-it-blindly-into-a-future-for-the-elite-78538">NBIC</a> (nano-bio-info-cogno-) technologies, global financial collapse and the exponential development of <a href="https://theconversation.com/your-essential-guide-to-the-rise-of-the-intelligent-machines-30228">potentially malevolent machine intelligence</a>, to name but a few. <a href="https://theconversation.com/doomsday-clock-moves-closer-to-midnight-but-can-we-really-predict-the-end-of-the-world-36632">The Doomsday Clock</a>, a symbolic gauge of our risk of <a href="http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1030.1553&rep=rep1&type=pdf">obliterating humanity</a>, has never been closer to “midnight”.</p>
<p>Of course, the end of humanity is as old as humanity itself – astrologists and religious orders have predicted that the world will end for millenia. But the types of risks we’re concerned by today really are quite distinctive to our era: they are irreversible, they have planetary (and in some cases extra-planetary) reach, and they have new technological textures. These risks have been described as “existential” because they threaten to cause, as the philosopher Nick Bostrom <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Superintelligence.html?id=7_H8AwAAQBAJ">has written</a>: “The extinction of Earth-originating intelligent life or to otherwise permanently and drastically destroy its potential for future desirable development.”</p>
<p>As a result, the phenomenon of “prepping” – a predominantly American phenomenon of storing food, water and weapons, and developing self-sufficiency skills for independently surviving disasters – is on the rise. This can be seen in the increasing amount of literature, podcasts, <a href="https://theconversation.com/apocalypse-now-why-the-movies-want-the-world-to-end-every-year-11496">movies</a> and TV shows on the subject, fictional and “<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-tv-viewers-guide-to-surviving-the-apocalypse-20060">real</a>”, along with the inevitable growth in related <a href="https://www.finder.com/doomsday-prepper-statistics">consumer</a> markets (such as camping equipment and bushcraft courses) that speak to the anxiety of existential risk. Growing prominence in Europe brought us to research this area. </p>
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<h2>Beyond tin foil hats</h2>
<p>Media accounts tend to focus on the peculiarities of prepping through extreme examples: reports of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-valley-billionaires-are-prepping-for-the-apocalypse-in-new-zealand">Silicon Valley elite</a> buying up bolt holes in remote New Zealand or the tin-foil hat wearing, forest-inhabiting eccentric. But prepping is not a marginal subculture, but a precautionary response people have to permanent crisis, as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0267257X.2019.1631875">our research</a> reveals. By analysing and engaging with online forums and speaking at length with a series of self-identified preppers, it became clear that most preppers aren’t so out of the ordinary. </p>
<p>Listening to preppers, you can begin to understand their reasoning. They often talk about their prepper lives as originating from some trigger or turning point – such as an insider seeing financial collapse firsthand and the house of cards it reveals, or the difficulties that come with illness or unemployment. After these realisations, our interviewees explained that they transition from being a woefully under-prepared to a prepared individual.</p>
<p>Our research concentrated on European preppers, who are somewhat differentiated from the American stereotype. We found that the European prepper views the culture of their American counterparts as political, religious, weaponised and misogynistic. They feel that the media attention this receives delegitimises the emphasis on rationality and practicality that is embedded into their practices.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280759/original/file-20190621-61729-3jwtu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280759/original/file-20190621-61729-3jwtu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280759/original/file-20190621-61729-3jwtu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280759/original/file-20190621-61729-3jwtu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280759/original/file-20190621-61729-3jwtu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280759/original/file-20190621-61729-3jwtu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280759/original/file-20190621-61729-3jwtu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The grid: far from trustworthy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/high-voltage-power-lines-197286998?src=MPU_7kb9OGAtW9PLxn9AdA-1-83&studio=1">Naufal MQ/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
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<p>Instead, common sense is the most valued currency in European prepper culture. They are profoundly distrustful of the ability of institutions to face crises. And in comparison to some popular accounts, we found that preppers are often more concerned with mundane failures of the system (electricity cuts or pension losses) than the more spectacular apocalyptic aesthetics associated with prepping culture (such as environmental collapse or nuclear fallout).</p>
<p>They know they are ridiculed and stigmatised – a consequence of the American stereotype. Their online forums are filled with warnings: if you are a journalist, keep out. They are concerned with “op-sec” (operational security): concerns about personal privacy and the strategic advantage of withholding information about the location of resources in the eventuality that any “prep” may be put into practice. Again, such practices are framed within the narrative of common sense. Common sense is claimed in order to reject its opposite: paranoia.</p>
<h2>Bin bags and radios</h2>
<p>Preppers consider people who don’t prepare – the rest of society – as shockingly ignorant of the world around them. It is “we” who are abnormal. The dependent civilian is variously viewed as oblivious, dilettantish, complacent and trusting, while the prepper is watchful. Preparation is seen as a type of foresight that is missing in ordinary consumers. </p>
<p>A prepper looks at the world differently: far from a smart, interconnected and highly functioning infrastructure subject to the rule of law, the city is a jungle where the lone prepper negotiates manifold dangers. This is why they carry “preps” with them at all times – from fire-making equipment to bin bags to radios – in their pantries, in their cars, on their person. One prepper told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I always carry two or three bin bags so I can make shelter no matter where I go. One of the bin bags can be used to make a roof and I could fill the others with leaves to create comfort and heat.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280760/original/file-20190621-61751-1hq4kx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280760/original/file-20190621-61751-1hq4kx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280760/original/file-20190621-61751-1hq4kx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280760/original/file-20190621-61751-1hq4kx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280760/original/file-20190621-61751-1hq4kx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280760/original/file-20190621-61751-1hq4kx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280760/original/file-20190621-61751-1hq4kx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Commercial heaven or chaotic hell?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/aerial-view-midtown-manhattan-sunset-st-453884227?src=KZZd7XhsbRKk0KVITiVcFA-1-16&studio=1">TierneyMJ/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Preppers pour scorn on consumer-centric technological interfaces such as social media and invest their time in pre-digital technologies like primitive fire and farming. Again, common sense is the most valued currency. </p>
<p>So what will happen to the rest of us? The prepper has trained for a world without a market system and considered what will happen when the dependent civilian comes calling. In common scenarios (such as electricity cuts, council water repairs) preppers tend to depict themselves as generous, helping out dependant neighbours despite the mocking it still often brings.</p>
<p>But in the ashes of a more serious consumer collapse, our conversations revealed an implicit subtext that when the shit does hit the fan, it will be everyone for themselves. And ultimately, it will be your neighbour that presents the biggest threat. Again, this is the common sense reality for preppers living in a world where the majority of people are seen as under-prepared, for whatever disaster we may befall.</p>
<h2>Prepper lessons</h2>
<p>When we think about escaping the constraints of the capitalistic dominant economy we are often met with utopian connotations of a “sustainable society” that places emphasis on community, cooperation, sharing and caring. The preppers offer a different take on what a “sustainable” world looks like, one grounded in ideologies of protectionism and self-preservation.</p>
<p>This echoes the 17th-century philosopher <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/hobbess-leviathan">Thomas Hobbes’s</a> famous suggestion that in the absence of institutions humans would become trapped in a cycle of violence – “a warre of all against all”. In other words, community is dangerous and consumption requires bunkering down. </p>
<p>Such individualistic “prepper” modes of thinking are likely to germinate further within society, particularly in the face of the current climate crisis. And this must be considered when we think of the practicalities of alternative systems to the neoliberal marketplace.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118867/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We spoke at length with a series of self-identified preppers. It became clear that most aren’t so out of the ordinary.Gary Sinclair, Lecturer in Marketing, Dublin City UniversityNorah Campbell, Associate Professor in Marketing, Trinity College DublinSarah Browne, Assistant Professor in Marketing, Trinity College DublinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/735342017-03-07T16:09:27Z2017-03-07T16:09:27ZSeven tips for surviving the apocalypse<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159941/original/image-20170308-24187-jorwl4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Apocalypse soon?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/background-destroyed-city-after-disaster-130558634?src=download_history">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Billionaires who have made their fortunes in Silicon Valley seem to be worried about the future. So worried in fact, that some of them are <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4190322/Tech-billionaires-building-boltholes-New-Zealand.html">reportedly buying</a> vast estates in places such as New Zealand, as “apocalypse insurance”. Boltholes to head to in the event of doomsday scenarios such as nuclear attack or global political meltdown. </p>
<p>But what about the rest of us? What should the non-billionaires of the world do if we haven’t prepared at all? How do we go about making and doing everything for ourselves once again, and help post-apocalyptic society avoid another Dark Age – and reboot civilisation? As a scientist, this is the thought experiment I chose to explore in my book, <a href="http://the-knowledge.org/en-gb/the-book/">The Knowledge</a>. So here are my seven top tips for getting to grips with a global catastrophe…</p>
<h2>1. Purify water</h2>
<p>Ensuring your drinking water is safe so that you don’t succumb to disease in a post-apocalyptic world will be crucial. Although boiling works perfectly, it uses up a lot of fuel. Iodine tablets could be scavenged from the ruins of camping stores, and bleach (sodium hypochlorite) or even swimming pool chlorine (calcium hypochlorite) can be diluted to chemically disinfect suspect water. But even sunshine can be used to keep you safely hydrated. Solar disinfection is recommended by the <a href="http://www.who.int/en/">World Health Organisation</a> in developing nations. Simply fill plastic bottles and leave in the sun – the UV rays will pass right through the water to kill pathogens in a day or so.</p>
<h2>2. Prevent infection</h2>
<p>Aside from securing safe water, the single most important thing you can do to stay alive in a post-apocalyptic world without antibiotics is to stop yourself picking up infections. Soap is enormously effective at protecting against gastrointestinal and respiratory infections, and can be made by boiling animal fat or plant oil with quicklime (roasted chalk or limestone) and soda. Ethanol is effective at disinfecting wounds, and can be distilled from fermented fruit or grain. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158793/original/image-20170228-13104-1x3rse2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158793/original/image-20170228-13104-1x3rse2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158793/original/image-20170228-13104-1x3rse2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158793/original/image-20170228-13104-1x3rse2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158793/original/image-20170228-13104-1x3rse2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158793/original/image-20170228-13104-1x3rse2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158793/original/image-20170228-13104-1x3rse2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">NZ - where the billionaires seek sanctuary.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/farmland-grazing-sheep-mount-cook-on-214318654?src=rVYqsEOm9EB1wui--dr_aQ-1-8">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<h2>3. Generate power</h2>
<p>The power grids could be out of action almost immediately – and electricity isn’t a resource you can really stockpile. You could scavenge mobile diesel generators from roadwork sites, but in the longer term as fuel becomes scarce you’ll need to turn to renewable sources such as wind or solar energy. An alternator scavenged from any abandoned car can generate electricity from improvised water wheels and windmills, which can then be stored in large rechargeable batteries. Better than the 12V car battery, the batteries in golf buggies or mobility scooters are “deep cycle”, designed to provide a steady amount of current over a long period of time, so much better suited for storing your off-grid power supply.</p>
<h2>4. Grow food</h2>
<p>Your post-apocalyptic community will only be able to <a href="http://the-knowledge.org/en-gb/how-to-open-a-can-without-a-can-opener/">dine out on the leftovers</a> of a fallen civilisation for so long. Soon enough the preserved cans of food on abandoned supermarket shelves will have been consumed or gone off. And by the time that happens, you’re going to need to have redeveloped agriculture to avoid starving to death. You’ll need a starter stock of viable seeds. The <a href="https://www.regjeringen.no/en/topics/food-fisheries-and-agriculture/jordbruk/svalbard-global-seed-vault/id462220/">Global Seed Vault</a> on the Arctic island of Svalbard is a doomsday-proof facility dug deep into a freezing mountainside. </p>
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<h2>5. Drive tree-powered cars</h2>
<p>Once all the remaining diesel and petrol fuel has gone you’ll still be able to benefit from mechanisation and vehicles. With a little modification, the internal combustion engine can be run on the flammable gases produced by the <a href="http://the-knowledge.org/en-gb/how-to-make-a-gasifier-stove/">thermal breakdown of wood</a>, a process known as “<a href="https://www.ars.usda.gov/northeast-area/wyndmoor-pa/eastern-regional-research-center/sustainable-biofuels-and-co-products-research/docs/biomass-pyrolysis-research/what-is-pyrolysis/">pyrolysis</a>”. During the fuel shortages of World War II, there were more than a million wood gasifier cars driving around Europe. The “dry distillation” of wood – heating it without access to oxygen – was used from the 17th century to produce useful substances such as creosote, turpentine, methanol and acetone. </p>
<h2>6. Restart a chemical industry</h2>
<p>The advancement of our civilisation was not just the development of machinery in the industrial revolution, but also owes a great deal to providing vital chemical substances for society. One of the most useful categories of chemical throughout history has been alkalis such as potash (potassium carbonate) and soda (sodium carbonate), used for making everything from soap to glass and paper. Potash is extracted by trickling water through the ashes of a hardwood fire and then evaporating away the water again to leave white crystals. Soda is purified in the same way, but from burned seaweed or coastal plants such as barilla or salicornia. </p>
<h2>7. Be scientific</h2>
<p>Over the longer term, as our post-apocalyptic society recovers and grows, we’ll need to relearn knowledge for ourselves. The greatest invention of them all, what we would want to preserve if all else was lost, is the scientific method. It is only by thinking rationally and critically, observing the natural world and prodding it in particular ways with experiments, that you can have any confidence that your explanatory stories (or hypotheses) are likely to be right. The invention of the knowledge-generation machinery of science in the 16th century is what enabled us to build the modern world. And it is science that you would need to <a href="http://the-knowledge.org/en-gb/the-book/">reboot civilisation</a> again from scratch.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73534/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lewis Dartnell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A handy guide to rebooting human civilisation.Lewis Dartnell, Professor of Science Communication, University of WestminsterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/674752016-10-31T18:03:34Z2016-10-31T18:03:34ZColorado’s survivalists hunker down for the election – and the apocalypse<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142810/original/image-20161023-15926-7q3qq4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://survivalist.com/">Survivalists</a>, also known as “preppers”, are people who embrace extreme disaster preparedness in anticipation of a possibly imminent total breakdown of society. The US has a <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/rise-preppers-americas-new-survivalists-75537">long legacy</a> of survivalist culture, and the archetypal survivalist is a pervasive, familiar stereotype: a right-wing macho-man <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Millennium-Rage-Survivalists-Supremacists-Doomsday/dp/0306454092/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1477061657&sr=8-1&keywords=Millennium+Rage%3A+Survivalists%2C+White+Supremacists%2C+and+the+Doomsday+Prophecy">paramilitary</a> enthusiast hoarding weaponry in a nuclear bunker in the woods, poised to leave society behind and begin a new life “<a href="http://survival-mastery.com/basics/how-to-live-off-the-grid.html">off the grid</a>”. </p>
<p>Historically, survivalism in the US has revolved around consumption. It has been described as a symptom of the “<a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09518398.2011.649308">anxiety of affluence</a>”, an expensive hobby of accumulation and hoarding undertaken primarily by rich libertarian Midwesterners. This image has only been reinforced by the characters who populate TV shows such as <a href="http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/doomsday-preppers/">Doomsday Preppers</a> and films such as <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2580382/">The Survivalist</a>. </p>
<p>But the stereotype doesn’t quite hold true – and there’s a lot more to survivalism than so-called “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Disaster-Capitalism-Making-Killing-Catastrophe/dp/1784781150">disaster capitalism</a>”. To find out more, I visited the western US state of Colorado just the US was slogging through the final act of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump’s presidential tug-of-war. There, I spoke to survivalists who are preparing for what could be a very new era in American politics.</p>
<h2>This is not the manpocalypse</h2>
<p>Defying the image of a movement driven by paranoid fantasy, survivalist culture is in fact deeply rational. Being based in rural states where natural hazards and harsh weather are plentiful, survivalists have to be <a href="https://www.fema.gov/plan-prepare">prepared for emergencies</a> if they are to be <a href="http://www.gsdrc.org/topic-guides/disaster-resilience/concepts/what-is-disaster-resilience/">resilient</a> in the absence of outside help. </p>
<p>A current hot topic for emergency planners is resilience in the face of “<a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10455752.2012.759252?needAccess=true">climate change</a>”, which has now taken its place alongside nuclear war, terrorism and malicious technology in the survivalist imagination.</p>
<p>The current wave of survivalism is more balanced than its predecessors. It has moved away from macho culture and the accumulation of stuff, and has a greater emphasis upon the development of survival skills and provision of community support – and a lot of this is down to a generational shift.</p>
<p>As I found when I met them, millennial survivalists are sociable, socially aware, and interested in ethical living and environmentalism. Like the <a href="http://nyupress.org/books/9780814738122/">millennial generation more generally</a>, they are more centrist and left-wing than right-wing. They also reject much of our era’s darker side – the inundation of social media, individualism, and what many of them deem to be <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/11/the-persistent-myth-of-the-narcissistic-millennial/382565/">narcissism</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143945/original/image-20161031-15728-xwybjt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143945/original/image-20161031-15728-xwybjt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143945/original/image-20161031-15728-xwybjt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143945/original/image-20161031-15728-xwybjt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143945/original/image-20161031-15728-xwybjt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143945/original/image-20161031-15728-xwybjt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143945/original/image-20161031-15728-xwybjt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Outside of society.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This all makes them a distinctive new breed. These newcomers are interested in sharing practical survival skills, not just developing them for themselves; they view resilience as something that demands strong community networks, not a matter of individual toughness.</p>
<p>I spoke to Daniel Spikowski, 26, part of this younger wave. He’s concerned about societal breakdown, but rather than hoarding tinned food, he’s working to develop useful skills and maintain his health. Consumption and hoarding, he told me, won’t keep you safe when society falls apart: “If you have a stockpile of things, then you’ll become a target for those things; whereas if you have a stockpile of skills, you’ll be the person that people work to keep alive … I’m not a big fan of guns in general.”</p>
<p>I asked him what he thought of the presidential race, and he said “I’m completely disillusioned, that would be the best way to describe it. I don’t know what to think, is the most accurate answer. I don’t have an opinion. You’re given two terrible options and you’re supposed to pick one or the other”. This <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/08/21/millenials-dont-like-donald-trump-or-hillary-clinton/">antipathy</a> towards both Trump and Clinton is echoed across his generation.</p>
<p>However, this new focus on gaining and sharing survival skills isn’t limited to millennials. I talked to Don Davis, 67, who has been a Fort Collins Search and Rescue volunteer since 1981. Don is a survivalist who apprenticed under the movement’s icon <a href="http://www.wisesurvival.com/InMemoriam.shtml">Papa Bear Whitmore</a> 34 years ago. He offers free training in survival skills “to teach people how to take care of themselves and be prepared”. He described the traditional idea of survivalism as “extreme … a lot of those people are anti-government, they’re just waiting for the apocalypse or <a href="https://billygraham.org/answer/what-is-the-rapture/">rapture</a>. Some of them are conspiracy theorists.”</p>
<p>We talked about the impending election, and he told me “I don’t like to talk politics. I have to vote for the lesser of two evils. Trump is an unknown, and Hillary has a lot of negative baggage. As for Bernie [Sanders], well, socialism doesn’t work!”. Davis will be voting, but he’ll make his decision on the day. </p>
<p>Survivalism’s turn away from <a href="http://nca.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10462937.2016.1158415">machismo and individualism</a> says a lot about the sort of movement it is. Far from a bizarre fringe element isolated from the mainstream, its ebbs and flows say a lot about our contemporary economic and political climate. </p>
<p>In a fragmented age where hardline, far-right forces have suddenly returned to the fore, many communities feel less secure than they have in a long time. Survivalists have found an organised, material way of expressing their lack of faith in their government – which as they see it is less able than ever to protect them from a rapidly changing world. </p>
<p>Whatever the <a href="http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/">outcome</a> on November 8, the survivalists will be ready.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67475/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span> </span></em></p>What’s the worst that could happen after the US election? As ever, “preppers” are ready for the total collapse of society.Becky Alexis-Martin, Research Fellow in Human and Social Sciences, University of SouthamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/318362014-11-20T19:28:23Z2014-11-20T19:28:23ZArchitecture of doom: DIY planning for global catastrophe<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64776/original/258b3r5j-1416272063.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Is Doomsday Preppers simply a freakish version of Grand Designs?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Geographic Channel</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Environmental catastrophe, economic collapse, global pandemic … does it feel like the world is ending? If you think Armageddon is near and are trying to get ready, you are not alone. </p>
<p>National Geographic Channel’s <a href="http://natgeotv.com.au/tv/doomsday-preppers/">Doomsday Preppers</a> – a reality TV series that profiles various “survivalists” readying themselves to survive a range of apocalyptic circumstances – is the network’s most-watched series. It has prompted a slew of similar programming such as Discovery Channel’s rival <a href="http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/other-shows/videos/doomsday-bunkers-a-preppers-paradise.htm">Doomsday Bunkers</a>. </p>
<p>Of course, even after an apocalypse one needs a place to live. </p>
<p>Since it first aired in 2012, Doomsday Preppers has featured survival retreats ranging from pre-fabricated steel shelters and decommissioned missile silos, to hand-built forest cabins and buried shipping containers. What has emerged is a picture of the ideal survival retreat (or “bug-out location” to use prepper slang) as rural, secluded, self-sufficient and fortified. </p>
<p>The show has even spawned <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/doomsday-preppers/id573940836?mt=8">an app</a> that challenges you to “design a multi-level dream bunker complete with everything you need for post-apocalyptic bliss”. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Yt1YD2jpQOU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Doomsday Preppers trailer.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The roots of the survivalist industry</h2>
<p>The idea of a domestic structure for emergency protection is not new. The Cold War nuclear fall-out shelter programs of the late 1950s and early 1960s provide an example of this as a mass phenomenon. </p>
<p>The kind of survival retreat we can see in Doomsday Preppers emerged a bit later. It solidified around the concept of a dedicated, self-sufficient (“off-grid”), secluded and secure home. </p>
<p>The late-1960s saw a surge in publishing and communication networks that disseminated discussion and advice on designing for this ideal. These networks also helped establish the roots of the present-day survivalist industry. </p>
<p>In the late 1960s, the American architect Don Stephens ran seminars on how to build and equip a remote survival retreat. Publications such as Joel M. Skousen’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Survival-Home-Manual-Architectural-self-sufficient/dp/B0006X9XAY">The Survival Home Manual: Architectural Design, Construction and Remodelling of Self-Sufficient Residencies and Retreats</a> (1977) also appeared. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64777/original/q3vvb86m-1416272161.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64777/original/q3vvb86m-1416272161.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64777/original/q3vvb86m-1416272161.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64777/original/q3vvb86m-1416272161.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64777/original/q3vvb86m-1416272161.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64777/original/q3vvb86m-1416272161.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64777/original/q3vvb86m-1416272161.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64777/original/q3vvb86m-1416272161.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Doomsday Preppers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Geographic Channel</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Today, an internet search will find dozens of similar titles, such as <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11310330-dirt-cheap-survival-retreat?from_search=true">Dirt Cheap Survival Retreat</a> (2011) and <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11125813-the-everything-guide-to-living-off-the-grid">The Everything Guide to Living Off the Grid</a> (2011). </p>
<p>There are also any number of survivalist (or prepping) blogs, forums, expos, equipment suppliers, consultants and even celebrities such as bestselling author <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Wesley_Rawles">James Wesley Rawles</a> (who wrote the <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8488492-patriots">Patriots</a> novel series), editor of <a href="http://survivalblog.com/">SurvivalBlog</a>. </p>
<p>A thriving industry has grown up around planning for apocalypse, with the design and equipping of the ideal home as a key element.</p>
<p>Discussion of survival retreat design focuses on issues such as strategic location, energy self-sufficiency, water supply, waste treatment, food production and home security. </p>
<p>Survivalists and preppers spend a lot of time arguing over the virtues of stainless steel versus plastic water drums, the best way to fortify a house, whether to use a passive solar heater or wood stove, and what size basement is required for all that canned food. </p>
<p>The effect is something like <a href="http://images2.fanpop.com/image/photos/12800000/Dorothy-in-Swiss-Family-Robinson-dorothy-mcguire-12881780-853-480.jpg">Swiss Family Robinson</a> with methane-harvesting septic systems and electrified fences. It is the wilder examples of survival retreat design that tend to catch our eye.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64780/original/2qfm4dxy-1416272479.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64780/original/2qfm4dxy-1416272479.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64780/original/2qfm4dxy-1416272479.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64780/original/2qfm4dxy-1416272479.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64780/original/2qfm4dxy-1416272479.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64780/original/2qfm4dxy-1416272479.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64780/original/2qfm4dxy-1416272479.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64780/original/2qfm4dxy-1416272479.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Doomsday Preppers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Geographic Channel</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Rawles sees the “crushroom” (a kind of foyer “mantrap”) as a key element of retreat architecture. One Doomsday Prepper episode featured a family who, fearing the fallout from a nuclear event, retreated to a replica medieval castle (and gained their own TV series, <a href="http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/doomsday-castle">Doomsday Castle</a>). </p>
<p>Survivalists can easily be caricatured as lonely lunatics sitting on piles of freeze-dried food and exotic armaments in their foil-lined bunkers. The typical TV survivalist rhetoric also suggests an intense pessimism about the possibility of collective, cooperative responses to surviving disaster.</p>
<p>The New York Times critic Neil Genzlinger <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/12/arts/television/doomsday-preppers-and-doomsday-bunkers-tv-reality-shows.html?_r=0">bemoaned</a> in 2012 “how offensively anti-life these shows are, full of contempt for humankind”. </p>
<p>But is Doomsday Preppers simply a freakish version of Grand Designs? Is there something other than voyeuristic smirking to be gained from watching? </p>
<h2>DIY gone wild</h2>
<p>Anthropologist Richard G. Mitchell’s <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1527998.Dancing_at_Armageddon">Dancing at Armageddon</a> (2001) is, I think, one of the most level-headed studies of survivalist culture. His work points to the way survivalism is rarely about extremist action. Rather, it is more often about tinkering with tools, exchanging ideas and creative storytelling.</p>
<p>We can see the design of the survival retreat as a wilder version of the more familiar impulse towards DIY and home renovation. </p>
<p>Survivalists use these projects as a focus for developing the personal skills, knowledge, and praxis needed to embrace a radically changing world. Potential chaos and crisis is embraced as the opportunity for developing personal autonomy. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64778/original/nnqwpr87-1416272249.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64778/original/nnqwpr87-1416272249.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64778/original/nnqwpr87-1416272249.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64778/original/nnqwpr87-1416272249.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64778/original/nnqwpr87-1416272249.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64778/original/nnqwpr87-1416272249.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64778/original/nnqwpr87-1416272249.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64778/original/nnqwpr87-1416272249.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Doomsday Preppers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Geographic Channel</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Seen in this way – and put in the context of global climate change, ongoing financial crises, and episodes such as the current ebola epidemic – the survival retreat starts to seem to be an eccentric but understandable reaction. </p>
<p>Going further, survivalists may be more connected to the chaos of modern life many of us experience than their reputation suggests. Discussions about the need for developing personal “resilience” in communities facing the effects of climate change often resonate with survivalist concerns. Preppers start to seem prescient rather than loopy.</p>
<h2>The new survivalism</h2>
<p>In fact, something like the survivalist dream has become a compelling vision of sustainable future living. Environmental concerns, rising power prices, and the progress in alternative technologies have seen a growing number of people opting to disconnect and live “off grid”. </p>
<p>This trend often shares a common picture of the ideal retreat; including, for instance, micro-hydro power, methane digester, water tanks, passive solar design, and avegetable garden. </p>
<p>Rawles has <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/fashion/06survival.html?pagewanted=all">suggested</a> that his SurvivalBlog has “an increasing number of stridently green and left-of-centre readers”. Off grid housing is even being talked of as the “new normal”. </p>
<p>This can be read as liberating moves towards sustainability, personal autonomy and self-determination. Survivalists also tend to privilege privatised, self-regulated, individualist modes of living. </p>
<p>The Australian off-grid advocate <a href="http://www.ecocitizenaustralia.com.au/michael-mobbs-sustainable-house-sydney/">Michael Mobbs </a> has recently suggested rethinking the state’s responsibility for sewage. He argues that “mature citizens” should take care of their own waste.</p>
<p>If it becomes the “new normal”, what could this sort of thinking mean for the way we live together? </p>
<p>Common services and cooperative social institutions have helped form the city as a public good. When looking at the overlapping discussions of being “prepped” and “off grid”, or “resilient” and “sustainable” we should perhaps be wary. Who has the capacity to be off grid and who remains dependent? </p>
<p>Exit from the grid challenges the collective infrastructures that have been so vital to more equitable urban environments. What, then, of our public networks such as water, electricity, transport and telecommunications? </p>
<p>What of our common urban future?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/31836/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lee Stickells does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Environmental catastrophe, economic collapse, global pandemic … does it feel like the world is ending? If you think Armageddon is near and are trying to get ready, you are not alone. National Geographic…Lee Stickells, Associate professor, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.